Box Office Results: ‘Expendables 2’ Expected to Hold Onto Top Slot In Slow Weekend

Box office results are expected to bring no big surprise this weekend, as the action-star heavy The Expendables 2 appears to have held off challengers from a couple of new action-adventure movies to hold on to the top slot.

Three new movies were released this weekend — bike thriller Premium Rush, comedy Hit and Run, and horror title The Apparition — but none of them appear to be headed to an impressive weekend gross, Entertainment Weekly reported.

Before the weekend started, Entertainment Weekly had predicted that The Expendables 2 was headed for a $12 million weekend, withstanding a dropoff of between 55 and 60 percent to beat the weak newcomers. Other industry experts think The Expendables 2 will pull in about $14 million, Reuters reported.

The No. 2 slot is seen as open for grabs, with The Bourne Legacy having a chance to grab the second-best box office result in its third week and ParaNorman also in the running All are projected to finish the weekend in the $10 million range, Reuters noted.

Hit Run, which was written and director by its star, Dax Shepard, got some good reviews but is expected to gross only about $8 million, Reuters reported. Entertainment Weekly was not too enthusiastic about the car chase flick’s extended results either, noting that a low payout per-theater and a “C+” score from CinemaScore doesn’t bode well for long-term gross.

Whichever movie ends up at the top of this weekend’s box office results, one thing is clear, Entertainment Weekly noted — the dog days of summer have solidly set in. The end of August is traditionally a time when the summer blockbusters have ended and box office results in the $50 to $60 million range are gone until the slate of family holiday movies comes out.